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Thursday, April 25, 2013

Eugene Miller on Sweeney's Team, Doesn't Know His Alphabet

What a fun week for Eugene Miller! The bantamweight Freshman Councilman from Ward 10 openly admitted his allegiance to Council President Martin Sweeney in connection with the new ward map that has now undergone revisions and another vote in City Hall.

According to the PD’s Leila Atassi, rumors had been circulating that Sweeney was buttering Miller up, handcrafting a ward in a shape that the sparky councilman was “comfortable with” in exchange for blind loyalty down the road.

“I’m going to be with Sweeney,” Miller told Atassi, “And if I am, I will have the power to describe how Ward 10 will look.”

Appreciate your candor, Councilman Miller, though we can’t say much about your aptitude for discretion. Miller has now corroborated what everyone thinks about Sweeney — that he is a wheeler and dealer, what Atassi evocatively calls a “back-slapper,” a man who rewards loyalty with favors.

[Brief tangent, here, to say that the reallocation of Cleveland’s wards shouldn’t be the ginormous news story that it has become. We really can’t stress this enough. Cleveland has fewer people; Cleveland should have fewer politicians. Basically end of story.]

With good reason, the Cleveland punditry has had its collective pantywear in a collective bunch about the secrecy and backroom orchestration of the new ward map — absent constituents’ voices and concerns throughout the process, blah blah blah — yet here’s Miller saying exactly what we feared.

Lookit, we know that to a certain extent, politics will be politics and tits-for-tats happen all the time. But with Miller running his mouth, the Sweeney-Miller alliance may not be long for Cleveland

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Miller certainly had a few things to say when he was arrested for speeding and driving under the influence back in November. The video of his arrest is now live on Cleveland.com.

“I’m a Cleveland city councilman,” Miller reminds the officers when he is asked to recite his ABCs. The officers don’t recognize him. One mentions that he thought the councilman was “Dennis” Miller, or something.

“ABCDEFG!” Pronounces Miller when asked to recite the alphabet, angrily counting the letters out on his fingers. He then tells the arresting officer — to demonstrate his sobriety? — that the President of the United States is Obama. He also sees fit to drop Wayne Drummond’s name, the Commander of Cleveland’s fifth police district.

His second ABC attempt is a doozy. “G” is a real hurdle for him, but after starting over, he builds momentum and comes to rest, after a few confused pauses, on “T.” Annnnd, slow clap.